Sunrise
by RadiantBeam
Summary: Sequel to Shadow:: Vivio struggles to come to terms with Lutecia's job and her own ideals, while Lutecia tries to decide if maybe now would be a good time to quietly exit Vivio's life. ::Vivio x Lutecia:: ::Three-shot::
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I don't own MGLN, Vivio, or Lutecia. I am merely torturing them for my own enjoyment and am making no money from it.

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**Sunrise**

"_I'm not afraid of dying  
It's something we all do  
But I'm scared to death of living  
The rest of my life without you."_

-Jason Michael Carroll

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Yagami Hayate considered it a blessing that her three boys hadn't yet entered the teenage stage of their lives. While she saw potential bloodshed in their future over who would end up with Yuuno and Miyuki's daughter Nami, two years their senior, they weren't old enough yet to actively pursue her or cause their mother and father any real grief. When that time came, Hayate dearly hoped she and Verossa would be able to handle it.

Watching Fate and Nanoha raise Vivio was a good learning example. She'd called them on their day off to see what they were up to, and was being treated to a lesson without even having to pay.

"Nanoha-chan, it isn't even eight yet." Stifling a smile behind her hand, Hayate tried her best to soothe her old friend through the communication screen. "By all standards for someone as old as Vivio and Lutecia-chan, it's still early."

Over Nanoha's shoulder, Fate mouthed the words 'I told her so' at Hayate, blinking innocently when Nanoha glanced at her darkly. "She said she'd only be gone a few minutes," the brunette muttered mutinously, not willing to let her daughter completely off the hook. "And she was out all night. Coming back late in the morning is one more strike."

"She probably lost track of time. You know how she gets when Lutecia is around." Amused and loving, Fate ruffled Nanoha's hair. "We were the same way when we were her age."

Hayate was hit with a sudden fit of coughing, causing her old friends to blush. Laughing at their expressions she leaned back in her chair, glancing down quickly at the report she'd been leafing through when she'd gotten the call from Nanoha. Quickly scanning the basic report, she dropped her eyes to the name of the Naval Special Intelligence Service agent assigned to the case and winced.

"What's wrong, Hayate-chan?"

_Of course they'd notice._

"Nothing really," Hayate sighed, flipping the folder closed and sliding it into the cabinet of her desk. "Just reading over the latest report from the NSIS. One of their Shadows was covering the job when it went wrong."

"I thought NSIS agents lost the ability to monitor their cases after they're passed over to Enforcers?"

"They can, it's a choice. This agent likes to keep tabs on how things go once it's out of the agency's hands." Hayate shook her head. "The mission went sour. I'm worried about how she's coping with it. She was entertaining the kids while the man was being interrogated, and she seemed pretty fond of them." She smiled humorlessly. "I wonder sometimes how she even got into the NSIS with such a gentle heart."

At that particular moment there was a crash from the hallway, followed by a sound that vaguely resembled a warped, high-pitched war cry. Hayate winced again. "Sounds like they broke something that time," she mused. "And that's my cue to soothe bruised egos."

"Have fun."

Hayate just smiled slightly before the screen closed. Fate leaned back, bracing herself on her elbows against the couch, and immediately noticed Nanoha's tension. "Hey." Understanding it, she sighed. "You can't judge her, Nanoha. We weren't there to see what happened."

With a sigh, the brunette shook her head, fighting to ignore the queasy feeling in her stomach. "Yeah, I know. But still… I don't like hearing about the Shadows and what they do. It's like they forget how nasty their methods can be and what kind of consequences come from those methods."

Fate said nothing, just leaned over and draped an arm along Nanoha's shoulders, nuzzling her hair quietly.

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Vivio Takamachi noted two things immediately upon waking.

The first thing was the fact that she had gone from deep sleep to wide-eyed wakefulness in the snap of somebody's fingers. Normally even on school days or training days, it took her a good ten minutes or so just to get out of bed. She wasn't fast to wake up, regardless of the situation, and to be this alert so quickly was in itself odd and unordinary.

The second thing was what had probably caused her to wake so quickly in the first place: even though she still felt warm from having her girlfriend sleeping at her side—okay, fine, technically she'd been on _top_ of her because of the couch—the space where she'd been was empty. Confused and still a little disoriented from waking, Vivio sat up and ran a hand through her hair. "Cia?" she called.

"In here, Vivio."

Lutecia's voice drifted from the kitchen, and Vivio stood, taking a few seconds to stretch and roll her shoulders before she headed towards the doorway. "What time is it?" she asked, rubbing her eyes absently with the back of her hand and shaking her head to clear her brain.

"A little after six." Moving with ease, Lutecia set a mug of warm caramel milk on the table, chuckling at the gleam that came into Vivio's eyes upon glimpsing her favorite drink. "Sorry. I thought I'd let you sleep a little longer."

Vivio shrugged, sitting down and pulling the mug close. "Didn't feel right without you there, anyway," she admitted, taking a sip and pleased by the fact that the drink wasn't hot enough to burn her tongue. Leaning back in her chair and craning her neck slightly to glimpse the clock, she winced. "Oh, man, Nanoha-mama's going to skin me alive. I told her I'd only be a few minutes."

"Mom called and got Fate-san, so they know you stayed here." Her body thrumming with nervous energy she kept strictly in check, Lutecia moved to the sink to keep her hands busy with dishes and water. "You could just tell her I needed some company."

Vivio smirked. "If I said that, she'd totally take it the wrong way." She took another gulp of milk. "Where _is _your mother, anyway? I figured she'd still be around."

"She went home with Genya after calling your house, and she's been there all night." Lutecia couldn't quite suppress the usual shudder she felt whenever she thought of her mother having a sex life. "We have an agreement. I don't ask what she does with her nights, and she doesn't ask what I do with mine."

"Maybe I should try that with Fate-mama and Nanoha-mama."

At Lutecia's soft laugh Vivio relaxed, leaning forward and resting her head in her arms, content to just wordlessly watch her girlfriend move around. She couldn't quite explain it, but for some reason she was filled with an unusual fear; a sense that if she looked away, even for just a moment, Lutecia would vanish.

_Odd, I've never noticed how quietly she moves around until now…_

"Is Shadow your official name?"

Had it been anyone else, Lutecia would have given them a bland look and the cold shoulder; but Vivio was the one asking, and she sounded genuinely curious, not judging in any way. "No. It's something the TSAB mages tacked onto us back in the early days, and it stuck. Kind of like…" She paused for a moment. "Well, you know how you call a member of the Air Force an Ace, or a member of the Ground Force a Striker? You call them that, but officially on documents they're still just Air Force agents or Ground Force agents. It's the same for us. Officially we're recognized as Naval Force agents, but unofficially we're called Shadows."

Vivio nodded, absorbing this information without further comment. After a moment, she closed her eyes. "Hey, Cia."

"Yes?"

"Have you ever considered giving it up?"

And there it was again: no cruel judgment, no harsh reproach, just quiet curiosity. Lutecia couldn't have denied Vivio an answer even if she tried. "Numerous times," she admitted honestly. She winced as the water flowing from the sink got too hot and scorched her hands, quickly twisting the knob to cool it down. "But in the end, I never do anything about it."

Vivio opened her eyes and lifted her head. Lutecia sighed and turned around, leaning back against the counter.

"I'm not the kind of mage you're familiar with, Vi. From the very beginning of my training I was taught to go in for the killing blow, something that's generally looked down on in the TSAB." She looked down, studying her hands. "Every time I go into a fight, I go in knowing that if worst comes to worst, I'll have to kill my target. I was molded into a killing machine, taught to always use the terrain to my advantage to end someone's life." She lifted her eyes, met Vivio's gaze. "Right now, if you were my enemy, I'd have five different ways to kill you just from being in this room with my skills."

Vivio said nothing, and Lutecia lowered her eyes again.

"I considered quitting and going into another branch, but the NSIS has ruined me for anything else but what I'm doing now. My final instinct in a fight will always be to kill, and I can do that knowing that the NSIS will protect me, that they've given me a reason for that. In another branch, I wouldn't have that protection, or that justification, if I killed someone, because the TSAB operates under a different set of beliefs. I'd constantly have to keep myself in check during a fight, constantly have to be on guard against that killing instinct, and it isn't worth it." She smiled slightly, tiredly. "If I quit and went into another service branch, I'd be a greater threat there than I am now as a Shadow in the NSIS."

Finishing the thought, Lutecia turned around and once again focused her attention on the sink, though now the water was cold enough to numb her hands. As she winced and gave up with a sigh, drying her hands with a towel, Vivio stood.

She'd never mastered the art of moving as silently as Lutecia did, but she was gentle enough to make up for it; her arms slid around the shorter woman's waist, her hands clasping together at her stomach as, with a shuddering sigh, she rested her forehead against Lutecia's shoulder and closed her eyes. Understanding Vivio by body language alone—something she'd always been good at—Lutecia reached down, gently covering Vivio's hands with hers. "I think I'm in big trouble," the Belkan summoner murmured.

Vivio laughed softly and tightened her hold slightly, pulling Lutecia closer.

"I think we both are, Cia."

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"I'm home."

It was soft, more of a statement of fact than an announcement of her arrival; Vivio couldn't summon the energy for much more beyond that as she slid off her shoes, hanging up her jacket and closing the door behind her with a click, pausing briefly to catch a glimpse of the rising sun for a few seconds. For some odd reason, though she'd just woken up she felt lethargic, as if all her normal recklessness had been drained from her body. Her shoulders and arms ached slightly, though she could attribute that more to holding Lutecia than anything else, and she didn't particularly mind _that _pain.

Oddly enough, she just felt so _tired._

_Come to think of it, whenever Cia came back from her missions she always said something about being tired, too…_

Vivio had never really taken note of Lutecia's behavior after she'd completed her mission before; if her girlfriend had been quieter and more withdrawn than Caro or Erio or perhaps a little more depressed or contemplative, the younger girl had simply chalked it up as part of her personality. Lutecia was, after all, much more composed and reserved than most of the extended Takamachi/Yagami/Harlaown family. Vivio had never had a reason or whim to suspect that the cause was anything else beyond that.

But now she knew the cause.

And truthfully, she didn't know quite how to handle it. Now that her initial reaction—comforting Lutecia—had passed, she was left with an aftermath of frayed emotions and her realization that her ideals clashed against the feelings she still had for her girlfriend.

Because despite knowing the truth now, Vivio realized something: _I'm still in love with her. I still love Cia._

"Vivio Takamachi, just _where _have you _been_?!"

The look of maternal wrath on Nanoha's face would have made even the veteran members of Squad Six cower with fear. This was the true White Devil, aflame with motherly fury and indignation, and not even Fate's gentle murmurs into her ear seemed to soothe her. Despite what she saw, Vivio smiled weakly even as her shoulders slumped. "Hey, Nanoha-mama," she said.

Nanoha blinked; in an instant, her fury was gone, replaced by a puzzled expression and growing concern that darkened her blue eyes. Resting a hand on the brunette's shoulder, Fate spoke for both of them. "Vivio? Did something happen?"

"I guess you could say that," the golden-haired girl mumbled. She sighed. "Can I go sit down? I really need to rest right now. Please."

She barely waited for her mothers' consent before leaving the hallway for the living room, dropping onto the couch with an exhausted sigh and resting her face in her hands for a moment as her eyes stung. She felt an ache in her chest that made her want to cry, though she couldn't quite put her finger on why she felt that way. Gathering her composure, she looked up at Fate's light touch as the blonde passed her to settle in a chair, burgundy eyes concerned, and Nanoha entered the room after a few minutes. The two looked at each other uneasily before Nanoha cleared her throat. "Is it Lutecia-chan?" she asked at last.

Vivio tilted her head to the side and smirked, briefly amused by how her mothers were walking on eggshells around her; while they'd correctly guessed the source of her current heartache, their reasons for making that guess seemed a little off. "We didn't break up," she sighed out, and sat up, leaning back against the couch. "If anything, I think we're closer now."

Nanoha and Fate exchanged another uneasy glance, and Vivio could practically read their minds: if she and Lutecia had gotten closer, why was she acting this way?

"When you say closer…" Fate began cautiously.

Vivio blinked; Fate's words sank in only a second later, and she blushed scarlet. "We didn't do anything like that!" she yelped, holding up her hands and shaking her head furiously. "I swear! We were just talking, and I lost track of time!"

Their daughter's vehement denial and red face seemed to soothe Nanoha and Fate, at least enough for the two to chuckle at Vivio's expense as she struggled to regain her composure, pouting. Even as she was warmed by the familiar feeling of their laughter, she knew what she was about to ask next would destroy the comfortable atmosphere. Taking a deep breath, she leaned forward, looking at her hands for a moment. "Hey, Nanoha-mama, Fate-mama…"

They both looked at her.

"… Do either of you know what NSIS stands for?"

Vivio didn't have to look up to feel the tension gather in the room, feel Nanoha stiffen and Fate wince, but she did anyway to meet their eyes. Several seconds of awkward silence passed before the Ace of Aces spoke, sitting down next to the teenager; her voice was bland and emotionless. "Naval Special Intelligence Service," she said. "It's a branch that was created by the TSAB as a means of gathering information."

"I'm surprised you know about it," Fate commented absently, frowning. "It's not a branch that's commonly discussed among TSAB mages. Even the higher-ups don't know all that much about it, with the exception of a handful."

Vivio allowed several more seconds of silence to pass before she closed her eyes, gathering her courage. The knowledge of what Lutecia did for a living was too heavy a burden for her to bear alone, but now that she'd started talking about it, she realized just how heavily what Lutecia did would clash with the ideals of her mothers. Fate and Nanoha were heroes, always had been and always would be; they went into a fight always willing to save someone's life, or to help as much as they could to save the world. For them, no sacrifice was needed to keep peace intact. They could save everything, _would_ save everything, without sacrificing anyone to do it. Lutecia was different; she lived her life, did her job knowing that she would one day be forced to kill someone to uphold the law. She would and _could _save the world, but at the cost of someone's life—quite possibly her own one day.

The thought of Lutecia sacrificing herself made Vivio shudder.

"Vivio?"

Vivio opened her eyes, releasing a deep sigh. _I can't hide this from them_, she thought miserably. _It'll just weigh me down until I tell them. _Her hands clasped together tightly. "What if I told you," she said slowly, "that I know about the NSIS because Cia is a Shadow?"

In the silence that followed, Vivio could have heard a pin drop. After several minutes, Nanoha's eyes narrowed slightly. "Lutecia-chan is a member of the NSIS?"

Something in Nanoha's tone had Vivio instinctively bristling, though she couldn't quite put her finger on why she suddenly felt so defensive and wary. "Yeah," she murmured, glancing at her mother cautiously. "She told me when I went over. She… a mission she had last night went wrong. People ended up dead, and she was a wreck because of it. She's better now," she added softly as an afterthought.

Nanoha's eyes darkened and narrowed, and Vivio could have kicked herself when she realized just what she'd said and how it would sound to her mother. "Mama—"

"Vivio, do you even _know _what a Shadow _does_?"

Immediately Vivio knew she was entering a fight she couldn't win. She had, at most, the bare basics of a Shadow and what they were required to do; she doubted Lutecia would have gone into more detail about it even if she asked. "Kind of," she said weakly. "Cia gave me the watered down version."

_Open mouth, insert foot. _The thought flashed through her mind as Nanoha's whole face seemed to darken.

"Nanoha." Fate's soft voice was enough to keep Nanoha from saying what she thought up front, if only because the blonde could see just how badly their daughter was being affected by this. Nanoha couldn't, and since she couldn't, one more word from her could make the situation even more unstable and cause a rift between mother and daughter that could never heal. Turning her attention to Vivio, who was starting to squirm, Fate smiled slightly, though it wasn't a happy smile. "The NSIS is a branch created by the TSAB to handle certain matters that normal mages wouldn't be comfortable with," she said. "And when I say 'normal', I'm talking about mages like me, or Nanoha, or Hayate-chan, who have been taught to think a certain way and control ourselves."

"And you're saying Cia can't control herself?"

"I didn't say that." Fate kept her voice pointedly calm, soothing, to lessen the fighting edge that had entered Vivio's tone. "What I'm saying is, NSIS mages operate under a different code of beliefs that we might not consider 'normal', which is how they earned their name as Shadows. A Shadow—"

"Kills and rapes, yeah." Vivio shifted slightly in her seat. "Cia told me that much, though she didn't go into detail." She almost defended Lutecia by mentioning what she'd been told last night, but she knew that now wasn't the best time.

"They do more than that," Nanoha muttered. "They kill and torture innocent people, just to get to someone else."

"Nanoha-mama." Vivio's voice was weak. "I get it."

"How long has Lutecia-chan been a member of the NSIS? Did she tell you?"

"I-I didn't really ask her, she was a mess and I didn't think—"

"She's killed people." Nanoha's voice, in contrast to her daughter's, was cold. "You realize that, Vivio, don't you? If she's a Shadow, then she's killed people."

"Well, yeah, I know that, but you weren't—"

"She had blood on her hands." The coldness in Nanoha's voice morphed into fury. "She had blood on her hands, the blood of innocent people, and she touched you with them. They weren't doing anything wrong—"

"_You weren't there!"_

Vivio's voice, the anguish and pain of it, the tears that threatened to fall, did to Nanoha what no enemy or opponent had ever successfully done. The famed White Devil could do nothing but stare, frozen, as her daughter collapsed into sobs, the tears she'd been fighting back finally breaking loose. "You weren't there," she choked out. "You didn't _see _her, you didn't _talk _to her, and you damn well don't know what it _did _to her! She was an absolute wreck when I came by, Mama! She wasn't sleeping well or eating anything, and she probably would have started crying if I hadn't come in when I did…"

Nanoha looked helplessly at Fate before wrapping her arms around Vivio, pulling the girl into an embrace. "Vivio," she whispered hoarsely. "Vivio, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…" She trailed off. "I'm sorry."

Vivio laughed hollowly and buried her face into Nanoha's chest, her fingers curling into her mother's shirt. "You know the worst thing about this?" she asked.

"No." Fate came over to her other side, sitting down so the teenager was cradled between her mothers, surrounded by warmth and love she'd always known. "What's the worst thing about this?"

"I still love her." Vivio closed her eyes. "I know what Cia does, what she has to do for her job, and I know it goes against everything I believe in… but I still want to be with her." She swallowed the hot lump in her throat. "I love her, and I don't know what to do!"

Nanoha hugged her closer and closed her eyes, even as Fate whispered soothingly to their daughter.

_I don't know what to do either, Vivio, _she thought helplessly. _I just… I don't know what to do._

Through the windows of the house the golden rays of the rising sun spilled through, signaling the end of night and the beginning of a new day.

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So here it is... part one of three. A direct sequel to "Shadow", because the storyline for that one was just _begging _for a sequel.

Hopefully the scene between Vivio and Nanoha is good, because I agonized for months over how to write it so it got across the message I was trying to deliver... hopefully. Personally, I think it works, but that's just me, and hey, I've been staring at this thing for months on end, trying to finish it.

Special thanks to DezoPenguin, who has been kind enough and certainly patient enough to discuss this story and its plot with me, as well as for suggesting that I make this multi-chapter instead of a one-shot, because I sure as hell can't resolve anything at all at this point.

Read and review, please!


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own MGLN.

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"_This is not what I intended  
__I always swore to you I'd never fall apart  
__You always thought that I was stronger  
__I may have failed but I have loved you from the start."_

-Secondhand Serenade

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"I appreciate this, Charlie."

The man, his chocolate brown hair streaked with silver, watched from the communication screen as Lutecia hastily scribbled down the name of the cemetery along with a small note to get flowers later today, placing it in her desk drawer where Megane wouldn't see it. "Anytime, Alphine." He leaned back in his chair as she stood, studying her for a moment. "You need anything else?"

"No, that's enough. I won't stay long. Just pay my respects, get out fast. The funeral's in a few days, right?" She kept her hands busy, the way she had a habit of doing after a mission; keeping her hands busy reminded her that they were good for more than killing. As she shifted through her desk, she paid only a brief glance to the brilliantly colored dragonfly key chain tied to the handle of the drawer, the chain tangled and dull from years of being in one spot.

"Yes, the day after tomorrow. None of the relatives were informed of the details behind the deaths or who was working the case, so you should be able to slip in and slip out without being hassled." Because his wife was out shopping and his kids were working on homework, Charlie indulged himself by lighting a cigarette. "Unless you've got other graves you want to visit."

Lutecia considered it, then quickly dismissed it. She'd visit soon enough—but for now, she still had a case to work on, and the blood of five innocents on her hands. "Maybe some other time," she said. "I still have some heat on the drug lord, so I want to take him down first before I visit any old friends."

Charlie blew out a long stream of smoke, lowering his cigarette slightly to study Lutecia with quiet, bright greet eyes. The woman was almost twenty-one, he reflected, still just a kid in the eyes of many, and burned to the bone by her time as a Shadow. At the rate she was going, she'd be killed on a mission by the time she was thirty-five. As a veteran Shadow at forty-three, he recognized the signs. He sighed, bringing his cigarette back to his lips. "Alphine, you need a vacation."

She paused, gave him a blank look. "I don't want to hear that from someone who's main workload these days consists of writing reports for the rest of us," she dead-panned, but her lips twitched dangerously; she knew just how much Charlie hated being confined to a desk job after a serious injury last year had cut his career short.

"Low blow," he mumbled. "Really low blow. But I'm serious. How long has it been since you ate something? Did you get a decent amount of sleep?"

"Charlie, don't coddle me." Because she knew he still would, though, Lutecia glanced at the screen and smiled slightly. "I'm fine, really. This is just my way of dealing with things."

"Hey, if you need to get away for awhile, my nephew and his family live on Mau Gram. I could always hook you up with them. His wife just had a baby, a little boy. I think you'd like the change of pace."

Lutecia opened her mouth, hesitated, then slowly closed it, frowning. _Actually_, she mused, _that doesn't sound like such a bad idea. _"How long would it take you to arrange that?"

Charlie snorted. "I practically raised the kid. I'd have an answer for you by tonight, no questions asked."

"Sure… okay, can you ask him for me? I hate to impose like this, but—"

"Don't apologize, it isn't like you." Charlie paused. "Actually, it is, but still." He brought his cigarette back to his lips. "You still goin' after that drug lord?"

Lutecia's eyes hardened. "I intend to take him down alive," she said simply. "I'm just as much to blame for what happened as he is, but he needs to pay for it as well."

Charlie nodded before crushing his cigarette in his fingers. "Listen, I know you only kill under orders, Alphine, but if you could… hit him extra hard for me?" His bright green eyes went dark. "My youngest boy is the same age as that dead girl."

"I'll keep that in mind." Lutecia's eyes softened, became slightly humorous. "Take care of yourself, Charlie."

"Same goes for you, Alphine. I'll have an answer for you by tonight."

When the communication screen closed, Lutecia left her room. Normally she viewed it as a sanctuary, a place for her to rest and recover after a mission that had hit her hard, but now the silence of it all unnerved her. She almost wished Megane was home, but her mother had gone in to work today with Genya. Lutecia had received orders from Chrono Harlaown, the head of her department, to take a few days off.

Dammit, it was too quiet. The silence gave her too much time to _think._

Lutecia hadn't done much since Vivio had headed home; since it was still early, she'd slept for a few hours, the exhaustion from her mission still enduring, and woken up to use her connections with Charlie to arrange a visit for the family's funeral. The whole matter had only taken a few minutes to resolve, and now the Belkan summoner was left alone with only her thoughts for company.

Lutecia wasn't like Megane; she didn't need something to do simply for the sake of doing. She was quite content with peace and quiet, didn't mind the moments when she could sit and watch life pass her by. But in the silence now all she could do was think, and thinking was a dangerous pastime. With a quiet groan, she made her way down the hall and into the kitchen, paused to study everything for a moment, and turned away to wander into the connecting room, flopping ungracefully onto the couch with a grunt, rolling over onto her back to stare at the ceiling.

It wasn't as if she'd intended to hide her work as a Shadow forever; Lutecia had fully intended to come clean about it when she felt Vivio was old enough and mature enough to handle the news, at a point sometime before things got too serious so the younger girl could walk away if she so chose. Lutecia had set the date as some vague time before Vivio's eighteenth birthday, and since then had been trying to figure out how to properly approach the subject without completely destroying Vivio's innocence or her ideals.

Obviously, she'd messed up in both aspects. While she had to give Vivio credit for not pushing her away the moment she'd been told the truth, Lutecia now realized that if she intended to remain a part of the girl's life, she'd have to figure out if remaining a Shadow was essential to her own sense of self-worth.

Lutecia's reasons for being a Shadow were varied and more personal than professional, but she was quickly learning that Vivio was a person she couldn't live without.

She closed her eyes and sighed. "Well, damn," she whispered. "This really complicates things."

When she heard the doorbell chime Lutecia simply remained where she was, considering whether or not it would be rude of her to just ignore the visitor; she was in no mood for guests. Megane's teachings ran bone deep, though, and when the doorbell sounded again Lutecia groaned and rolled off the couch. "I'm coming, I'm coming," she muttered. Not even caring that she was still wearing her training clothes, Lutecia opened the door.

Truthfully, she wasn't all that surprised to see Takamachi Nanoha at her doorstep, her blue eyes dark and stormy. Lutecia sighed, accepting the inevitable. "Nanoha-san, hi," she greeted, stepping aside and ignoring the older woman's glare as she entered the apartment. Glancing at her briefly, Lutecia took in her stance, the controlled anger in her movements, before heading back into the living room. "I apologize if it's messy in here," she called over her shoulder. "Mom hasn't come home yet, and I've been busy with other matters."

"You mean you've been busy with Shadow business." Nanoha's voice was dangerously soft.

Lutecia closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened her eyes again. "Shadow business is part of it, yes," she conceded, knowing it was useless to play dumb. Because it was the safest place to be at the moment, the purple-haired woman settled on the couch again; she didn't trust Nanoha enough to bring her into the kitchen, not when her anger was so obvious. She said nothing for several seconds, letting Nanoha sit on the other end of the couch and noting with a twisted flash of humor that the older woman was sitting as far away from her as possible. "Don't worry," she said mildly. "Being a Shadow isn't contagious."

Judging by the glare she got, Lutecia knew the joke wasn't appreciated; but damned if she'd lose the ability to laugh at herself or the situation around her. Sighing, she leaned back against the couch. "All right, all right, I get it," she murmured. "Now isn't the best time."

Several more seconds of incredibly awkward silence passed, and Lutecia resisted the urge to start squirming. The longer Nanoha stayed silent, the longer Lutecia's mind had time to visualize how this was going to go, and her imagination wasn't soothing her at the moment. Finally, Nanoha looked at her. "How long?" she asked.

"I'm… afraid I don't understand what you're asking, Nanoha-san."

"How long have you been a Shadow?" Nanoha reiterated, studying Lutecia with eyes that dared her to lie. "How long have you been lying to Vivio? How long have you been pretending to be an honest, decent person when all along you were doing… while you were a _Shadow_?" Nanoha practically spat out the last word, as if it tasted bad against her tongue. Lutecia sighed.

"I was supposed to be on Mau Gram until I was eighteen. You know that, and so does everyone else I've ever met." Suddenly feeling tired again, the Belkan summoner rubbed her temples. "It isn't my fault you never took the time to investigate my line of fieldwork."

Nanoha opened her mouth, hesitated, and closed it again; Lutecia imagined that somewhere in the unseen universe, a scoreboard lit up in her favor. "And I resent that _pretending _to be an honest, decent person, Nanoha-san," she added softly. "My fellow Shadows are no different from the rest of the mages in the TSAB, with the exception of maybe a handful, and that handful never gets too large. We just do dirtier work than everyone else."

"A handful."

"The Shadows who, generally, do what they do and actually get some sick, twisted pleasure from it." Lutecia lowered her hands from her temples. "They don't last very long. In the end, the rest of us take them out. If you enjoy what we do for a living, then something's wrong with you and you should have never signed up for this line of work."

"And yet you claim to be an _honest_, _decent _person while being a Shadow."

"I never said I enjoyed doing it, did I?" Lutecia snapped, and the flash of temper in her usually calm red eyes had Nanoha blinking. "I damn well don't get any pleasure from killing and torturing, even when the targets deserve it in the eyes of society and the law. I know in the long run our work does good, and it's something I agree with. Doesn't mean I have to agree with the methods."

Nanoha narrowed her eyes, shifted in her seat. "You say you do good," she said coldly, "and yet you willingly confess to killing and torturing people, even innocents."

"I'm not as powerful as you, Nanoha-san." Lutecia closed her eyes. "The truth is, not many mages are, and it's because of your power than you've been trained to see the world the way you do." She opened her eyes and glanced at Nanoha. "I don't think you could even _comprehend _the disaster that would occur if you'd been told, the moment Raising Heart awakened to you, that you had to think the way I do and do the things I do. Earth would have been doomed." Shaking her head at the mere thought of it, Lutecia ran a shaky hand through her hair. "You're short-term good, Nanoha-san, an instant fix for a problem the government won't handle. I'm long-term good, to ensure that the government never has the problem in the first place."

Nanoha's eyes flashed at that. "What reason would you have—"

"I have reasons, and they're mine," Lutecia cut her off smoothly. "You chose to do what you do because of your experiences, and I've chosen to do what I do because of mine."

The brunette stared. Just stared. "What kind of experience would make you willing to do this?" she hissed.

"Fear. Worry for my mother, seeing as taking this job got her off Mau Gram in the first place. Guilt, because I'm killing people, and the only way I can justify _that _is by believing that what I'm doing means something in the long run, otherwise I could never live with myself. Though if you're asking about the defining _moment_, I'd have to say it was when I watched my partner take a knife meant for me and bled to death in my arms." Lutecia shrugged. "Could be that, too."

A long, thick silence fell between the two as Nanoha fully absorbed the meaning of Lutecia's words and what she was leaving unsaid. Undeterred, Nanoha finally cleared her throat and got to the heart of her visit. "As much as I would _enjoy _debating this with you," she said, and Lutecia had the sinking feeling that by 'enjoy' Nanoha meant 'aim a Starlight Breaker at you and blast you into the next dimension', "there's another reason I came here."

"And that reason would be what?"

"Vivio."

Lutecia had believed that anything Nanoha could say to her at this point would have little to no effect on her feelings or mind, and was soundly proven wrong as the mere mention of her girlfriend's name made her cringe, bringing back all the guilt and uncertainty she had felt before. Seeing her shrink, Nanoha knew she'd backed the younger woman into a corner. "What about Vivio?" Lutecia asked weakly.

_As if you don't know!_

"I'm going to be blunt now, Lutecia-chan." Nanoha locked Lutecia with a look that left no room for retreat. "Did you ever truly, genuinely care for Vivio? Or were you just playing along to the whims of your superiors to keep a leash on her potential? She's one of our most promising mage talents, after all, and you could easily manipulate her to control the politics behind the Saint Church and the whole Belkan Autonomous Region." Her voice was positively frosty, her blue eyes dark and hard. "I believe people like you call it 'deep cover', right?"

By the time Nanoha had finished, Lutecia had gone numb all over; even her anger and exhaustion had completely drained from her body, along with the blood in her face, leaving her pale and shaken in the wake of Nanoha's accusation. Even as Lutecia accepted that such a question was understandable, the hurt pierced her like nothing else. She dropped her face into her hands, shuddering, and wondered why she suddenly had the urge to laugh. "I don't know," she whispered, "if I should slap you for saying that, or hug you for realizing just how much of a threat I am to her."

Nanoha blinked. Of all the reactions she'd braced herself for, she hadn't expected to hear shattered, anguished relief in Lutecia's voice. After several deep breaths, the purple-haired woman lifted her face from her hands to meet Nanoha's gaze.

"I understand your concern. It's natural. In my defense, however, I'd like to point out that if I was interested in manipulating _anyone _to gain control of the Church and the Region, using Vivio would be not only incredibly amateurish on my part, but suicidal."

Nanoha blinked again. Ignoring her stunned look, Lutecia plunged on.

"For one thing, while Vivio is definitely the most promising mage out there, she isn't the only person I could use to get a hand into the politics, and she certainly wouldn't be the most reliable because of how young she is and because she doesn't realize her own potential. Planting the thought into her mind would take too much time, and she's surrounded by people who could kill me in my sleep if they so chose. That's not the kind of position people like me enjoy being in, as you so gently put it." Lutecia smiled shakily, with no bitterness.

"I asked you—"

"Be quiet, or I'll sic Garyuu on you for real this time." Lutecia's voice was dangerously mild and had Nanoha snapping her mouth shut in seconds. While fighting Garyuu wasn't the most challenging thing the White Devil could do, it was well known throughout the TSAB that Lutecia was S-rank and quite capable of holding her own in a firefight.

Nanoha gritted her teeth. "Fine," she bit out. "What's the other reason that going after Vivio would be an _amateur _move?"

"Let's just say, hypothetically, that I was in fact ordered by my superiors to manipulate Vivio, or just suddenly had the whim one day to do it myself." Lutecia felt her anger bubbling just at the thought, and fiercely kept it in check. "First, they wouldn't wait until she's seventeen to make a move, which means that I wouldn't waste my time building a friendship with her. They'd want me to present myself as a romantic interest to her right away, since I'd have more access to things as her girlfriend than as her best friend. On that note, it would be amateurish of me to do such a thing because I'd put myself into a situation where I couldn't completely control the setting or the people around me, and generally Shadows like being in control of things. By not doing this, the risk to my wellbeing is high right from the start."

"You didn't mention what would happen if you decided to do it yourself."

Lutecia narrowed her eyes at that. "Believe me if you want, Nanoha-san, but I've never spared a thought for Vivio's role in the Church and the Region. I could care less about it."

"Which brings me back to my original question," Nanoha shot back. "Lutecia-chan, do you genuinely care for Vivio? If you don't, then it'd be best for you to break things off now."

Lutecia blinked; the understanding dawned a moment later, even as she felt a grudging respect with the knowledge that Nanoha would go so far to ensure her daughter's health and happiness. "You're asking me to break up with her."

"Yes." Nanoha clasped her hands together. "Or, at the very least, get away from her for awhile. At this stage, it would be, at worst, a bad break-up for her. Everyone experiences those. It would be hard, but she would recover."

Lutecia nodded quietly with a sigh, rubbing her eyes. "If it's any consolation," she mumbled, "I'm heading out to Mau Gram soon. Figured I'd touch my roots again, figure myself out."

"Mau Gram?"

"It's developed well as a planet colony over the years, so it isn't just a place for reformed criminals anymore. I'd still be there if I hadn't become a Shadow. It's quiet, so I thought it'd be a good place to gather my thoughts, possibly go through some re-training."

"… Re-training?"

At Nanoha's confused tone, Lutecia smiled again and lifted her eyes to Nanoha's. "To be something other than a Shadow, Nanoha-san. I think I'm capable of it." She took a deep breath.

"I understand what you're saying. Believe me when I say I do. But I can't—I _won't_—go along with your request. And Mau Gram doesn't count," she added hastily before Nanoha could throw that back in her face, "because my friend is arranging it for me. I could back out at any time."

"And why won't you agree?"

"For one thing, to decide to do something this major without Vivio's opinion would be disrespectful not only to our relationship, but to her as a person. Vivio's old enough and mature enough to be a part of such decisions, Nanoha-san, whether you want to believe she is or not. When she comes back, I'll tell her about Mau Gram first thing and hear what she has to say on it. I have the plans to fall back just in case, as it is."

Lutecia paused, then took a deep breath.

"I love Vivio. I truly do, even if you don't believe that, Nanoha-san. After so long, I can't just walk away from her, not unless she wants me to. I need her. I _know _what I am," she said softly, "and I know what I do. If that's too much for her to handle, then it's something I'll have to hear from _her _mouth… not _yours_." Drained again in a way she had never been before, Lutecia fell back against the couch. "That's about it for today," she murmured. "Do you need me to walk you to the door?"

Nanoha shook her head wordlessly and rose, brushing by Lutecia as she walked. Lutecia listened quietly to the sound of her footsteps, heard the door open and close in Nanoha's wake. She sighed and covered her eyes with her arm.

"Dammit." As the first tears slipped down her cheek, Lutecia closed her eyes. "Dammit, _dammit_."

Lutecia knew she'd truthfully meant every word she'd just said to Nanoha.

She wondered why that made the pain worse.

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I typed out the whole confrontation scene in about ten, fifteen minutes, which is a real pain in the ass because it was giving me so much trouble. Special thanks again to DezoPenguin for his infinte patience and willingness to discuss anything with me, from the characters to the plot. I really owe him big time with this one.

The last bit of this chapter was written with a mix of emotions. On Friday my friend's grandfather died of old age and complications due to illness. The wake was today, and tomorrow morning is the funeral. I loved that man like he was my own grandfather, and before he died we had to deal with his Alzhemier's disease, which was as painful as going to his wake was. So I pretty much took all the grief and anger and finished this. Rest in peace, Frank.

...

Next chapter's the last, and focuses on Vivio and Lutecia.

Read and review, please!


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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"_I tried to let you go  
__I wish I could turn back time  
__And show you just how I feel  
__I needed you to know  
__If it takes my whole damn life  
__I'll make this up to you."_

-Cold

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Amazingly, after Nanoha left and her tears had been shed, Lutecia fell asleep once again, a dreamless slumber that could have lasted for days if she'd been given the option. A part of the summoner wondered if she was truly more tired than she claimed to be, or if the sandman of fairytales had developed an annoying habit of haunting her in her waking moments.

She might have been spending more time sleeping than usual, but nothing changed the fact that even when she slept like the dead the sound of a needle hitting the floor could wake her faster than any magical blast. Lutecia was pulled from the depths of her slumber by the sound of the doorbell ringing yet again, and as she sat up recalled that Nanoha hadn't locked the door on her way out. "It's open," she called.

Lutecia felt an odd mixture of relief and fear as Vivio cautiously pushed the door open, peering inside sheepishly. "Hey," she whispered. "Can I come in?"

"Hmm, well, actually I have my superior officer on hold, but if you insist."

Vivio giggled, and Lutecia felt some of the apprehension drain out of her as the younger girl walked into the room. The summoner sat up, then paused as she realized Vivio's uncanny timing in her arrival. "Er, Vi, do Nanoha-san and Fate-san know you're here?"

Vivio shrugged. "I left a note," she said simply. Under normal circumstances she would have had Burning Glory contact Raising Heart or Bardiche and leave a message, but he was still being repaired for recent damage. "The way Fate-mama and Nanoha-mama were talking when I left, I could have burst in butt naked and done the salsa and they wouldn't have noticed me."

"Interesting image," Lutecia murmured, and Vivio snickered. The purple-haired woman sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "But Vivio, I'm serious. I'm already on Nanoha-san's hit list."

"Well, yeah, but I figure Aunt Hayate knows Nanoha-mama well enough to keep her at bay if Fate-mama can't." Even as Vivio's amused tone made Lutecia smile slightly, the younger girl shrugged. "Besides, if worse comes to worse I'll just talk to her myself. She has to look me in the eyes again sometime today."

A sinking feeling made itself known in the pit of Lutecia's stomach, and she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath before she opened them again. "Vivio," she began slowly, "I didn't tell you about my business as a Shadow to cause all out war between you and Nanoha-san."

"It isn't a war. I love Nanoha-mama, and I admire her ideals. It just makes my life a lot harder when I know she's trying to convince you to stay away from me _because _of those ideals."

"You knew she was going to visit me?"

"I had a vague idea she would. She looked angry when I went upstairs, and I heard her and Fate-mama talking before she left. Fate-mama didn't want her to go, but she did anyway."

Lutecia blinked before she fell back against the couch with a groan, rubbing her eyes. "That would explain part of her bad mood," she muttered. "A small part of it, anyway. Mostly she was just mad at me and the NSIS as a whole."

Vivio fidgeted for a moment before steeling herself. Her feelings were clear, at least to her, but she still had to ask this; Lutecia's reasoning this morning, while understandable, had still been incredibly superficial in terms of justification for her choice to remain a Shadow. "Cia?"

"Yes?"

"Why do you still do it?" Vivio's voice was hesitant now as Lutecia looked at her. "If it causes you so much pain, then why are you still a Shadow?"

There was a long moment as Lutecia stared at Vivio before she once again averted her eyes to the ceiling, and she laughed softly. "Why am I still a Shadow?" she repeated softly. "I've lost count of the number of times I've been asked that…"

Vivio waited. Several more minutes passed before Lutecia spoke again. "For one thing, it's just how I'm built," she said. "My mother was absent from my life as far back as I could remember, and the Doctor wasted no time in training me to be the perfect weapon. I saw death and murder every time I traveled with Zest, even when he tried his best to shield me from it; and eventually, he stopped trying. I was a weapon, Vivio, not a person. Never a person," she mused, and sighed, wondering why that didn't depress her. "Even when I became a Shadow, the same logic applied. I went out under orders, I did what I had to do, and that was the end of that. I never had anyone telling me I could be something different, something _better_, and even when Erio and Caro gave me that hope I lost it when I was recruited to join the Shadows. Even now, when I _know_ I can be better than that, the mindset is incredibly hard to break."

Vivio said nothing, knowing there was more to be said; when it became obvious she wouldn't speak, Lutecia inhaled deeply and continued.

"To complicate matters, to a certain extent I _do _agree with what we do as Shadows; that in accomplishing our missions and taking out our targets, we're ensuring the long-term peace and stability of the government, if not the planet. I agree with it," she repeated. "It's much easier in terms of ability to handle a problem for long-term rather than short-term, because half the time we don't have the kind of power needed to solve the short-term problem. I don't agree with the _methods_, but that's my own personal belief as a person."

The silence that followed was longer and thicker, and Vivio had the feeling that Lutecia was finally reaching the heart of the matter, her real reason for remaining a Shadow. Finally, Lutecia looked at Vivio. "I never told you about Miranda."

"No." Just from the way she was talking, Vivio knew Miranda was dead.

"I met her when I was thirteen. She was my partner, and nineteen at the time. I worked with her for four years. You would have liked her." Lutecia's lips twitched slightly. "She was a bit of an airhead, but she was there when it counted."

Vivio nodded.

"She died when I was seventeen." Lutecia's voice softened slightly. "We were working a case and were ambushed, got separated in the fight. I got distracted, and she took a knife that should have stabbed me. She was twenty-three," Lutecia whispered. "She'd just gotten engaged to her boyfriend. She wanted me to be a part of the wedding. And she bled to death in an alley because I hesitated, because I let some little kid distract me."

Again, Vivio nodded, swallowing the lump that had sprang into her throat.

"It wasn't just that, though she's a major part of it." Lutecia shook her head tiredly. "Miranda, and many of us, believe wholeheartedly in what we do, why we do it. It doesn't make them bad people, it's just how they think, and screw the TSAB mages who preach their ideals when they have S-ranked powers." The Belkan summoner smirked at that. "So the saying goes, in any case. They believe in what they do, genuinely _believe _it, and every day some of them die for it." Lutecia rubbed her eyes again. "And for me, it isn't just them, but even the people I've killed. I can't… I don't know how to explain it. I've never tried to figure it out. It's just a feeling I have, that if I stop what I'm doing that somehow… somehow, I'm letting them all down."

Vivio absorbed this quietly, letting the words sink in and sorting them out while Lutecia watched her nervously, clearly unsure as to what reaction to expect from the younger girl who had always aspired to be like her mothers. Finally, Vivio sighed. She hesitated for a moment, then bit her lip. "Can… can I ask you something?"

The nervousness drained out of Lutecia's body to be replaced only by weariness and an odd sense of wishing she could just fade into oblivion at this particular moment; she didn't know how much more she could answer for before it became too much. She rubbed her temples to fight off a coming headache. "Go ahead," she said. "But I can't promise you'll like the answer."

_I wonder if I could still find a way to invent a time machine. If I could, I'd use it to jump back eight years from now to tell my younger self not to take the job; it'll break her heart in more ways than one. I'd tell her—_

Vivio gathered herself up now; even if she knew the answer was something she wouldn't like, she was Nanoha's daughter through and through; bravery was an inherited trait for her. "When you… told me about your job…"

"Yes?"

"I mean, it wasn't like I was _angry _that you told me about it… I was happy. I was happy that you trusted me with that. But it made me realize…" To keep the tears at bay as she felt them rise once again, Vivio swallowed hard. "It made me realize that _Cia_ is only half of who you are. I've known Cia all my life, but I don't really know _Lutecia _at all." Even if she didn't cry, the tears were still in her eyes when she looked helplessly at Lutecia. "Why?"

_--don't let Mom come to Mau Gram. For the love of everything good and holy, when she insists on coming along, beg her to stay on Mild-Childa. Please._

Quite suddenly, Lutecia wished she'd gone ahead and picked a fight with Nanoha. Facing down a Starlight Breaker would have been less terrifying than baring her soul to Vivio. To buy herself time she lowered her hands from her temples, clasped them together tightly. Finally, she took a deep breath. "How was I supposed to tell you?" she asked.

Vivio blinked. "Tell me?"

"I came back to Mid-Childa when I was thirteen, Vi. Not even Mom knew _why _we came back, only that I was considered socially fit to interact in society. You were thrilled, Caro was crying, Erio was trying _not _to cry, and Agito looked like she couldn't decide if she wanted to scold me for taking so long or hug me like she would never let me go. How was I supposed to mention, quite casually, that the only reason I was even home in the first place was because I'd taken a job that asked me to kill and torture people?"

A quick glance told Lutecia that while Vivio obviously wanted to interrupt, she was keeping herself at bay. Apparently, the younger woman had no intention of giving an inch. Wincing slightly, she carried on.

"I knew hiding what I was from you was wrong. I knew you had the right to know what I did, why I did it, and that in hiding it I was only setting myself up for this situation, which is why I originally planned to tell you the truth when you were eighteen, or sometime before that. I wasn't particularly looking forward to that moment, but I knew I owed you that much before things got too serious."

Vivio's eyes went curiously blank. "Too serious."

Lutecia recognized the warning signs immediately; she'd seen that look in Vivio's eyes once or twice before. Because she knew that anything she said at this point wouldn't change the outcome, she gave herself over to fate. "Yeah," she mumbled. "Too serious." _Should've taken my chances with Nanoha-san's Starlight Breaker_, she mused with a sigh.

Watching Vivio lose her temper was like watching a volcano erupt. It started off slowly, gradually, the anger gathering inside of her until it practically radiated from her body and everything exploded out. Lutecia had seen enough off-planet volcanoes to know they didn't even compare to Vivio's rage. Oddly enough, the older woman couldn't recall a time when that fury had been directed at _her_, and the fact that she was capable of provoking such emotion from the youngest Takamachi made her nervous. "Vivio?" she asked weakly.

The eruption never came. Already half rising, the nervous tone of her girlfriend's voice was enough for Vivio to release a shuddering sigh before she dropped back down, trembling slightly.

"You know, you just dodged the question." Fiercely reining in her rising temper for the time being, Vivio rested her head in her hands, closing her eyes. "You've always been good at that. I never noticed it when we were kids."

"You're seventeen, Vi. One more year to go before you're considered a legal adult, so you're still a kid in your own way." Lutecia ran a hand through her hair. "And as for dodging the question, yeah, I did. So that's my own fault." She blew out a long breath. "It's a defensive mechanism. Right. Okay." Noticing her girlfriend's posture, she inhaled deeply. "Vivio, lift your head. You're not the one who's wrong here."

"I just want to know why." Vivio's voice was impossibly soft, impossibly small, and made Lutecia crumble in a way no enemy ever had. "I want to know _why_, Cia. Why you didn't trust me enough to tell me this." Now she lifted her head, locking a gaze on Lutecia that left no room for retreat or lies. "Do you really think I'm that weak?"

_Oh, shit._

Lutecia had stood down drug lords, religion-crazed maniacs, and perverts. She'd looked into the eyes of murderers and addicts, and never felt any true sense of fear or worry. Looking at Vivio now, the older woman realized she wasn't simply afraid.

She was completely, thoroughly terrified.

Knowing it was cowardly, Lutecia looked away to focus on her hands. She could commit murder and other cruel acts without blinking, feeling an inner twist of guilt and disgust, but never showing any sign of it outwardly, but seeing the pained, confused look in Vivio's eyes—and knowing that she was the one who had put it there—stabbed at her heart like a poisoned dagger.

Quite suddenly, Lutecia was immensely glad that Vivio hadn't been conscious when she'd been abducted during the JS incident. She knew at that moment that if Vivio had looked at her then the way she was looking at her now, she never would have allowed herself to hand her over for experiments. Or at the very least, if she'd managed to hand her over for experiments after looking into those eyes, she would have lasted approximately five minutes before rushing back in to save her.

Vivio had always known that, of course. Not Lutecia's feelings on the matter of the incident, but she'd always known what role her girlfriend had played in it. She'd never blamed her for it; she'd forgiven easily and without asking questions, accepting Lutecia into her life without hesitating. Forgiveness, that natural trust, seemed to be an instinct that ran strong in the Takamachi family.

And Lutecia hadn't returned that same forgiveness, that same feeling of trust. She'd chosen to hide her work as a Shadow; not that she was _wrong_ in doing so, but she certainly could have found a way to tell Vivio, at least. She'd simply chosen not to because hiding it was easier. By not telling Vivio, she'd kept herself in a position where she never had to stop and think about just how much the younger girl meant to her, and how much it would hurt to lose her, how much telling her would hurt her.

_Excellent logic, Alphine. _She smiled bitterly to herself. _You're hurting her either way._

"You aren't weak, Vivio." Dammit, she still couldn't do it; she still couldn't look her in the eyes. Coward, coward, coward. "You've never been weak, even when you were a child. The only weak one here is me." Lutecia sighed. "Honestly, I didn't even expect you to come back today. You should probably head home. Nanoha-san will be furious when she realizes where you are."

_Coward, at least look her in the eyes when you're giving her the okay to walk out of your life!_

"_Dammit_, Lutecia!"

The long-awaited eruption finally came. At this point, Vivio couldn't have controlled her anger even if she tried.

Lutecia had, admittedly, seen scarier things than a teenager losing her temper; some of those things had nearly taken her life. Still, the fury in Vivio's voice, the force behind her fist as it slammed into the table in front of the couch, was enough to make her jump. "Vivio?"

"This isn't about me." Vivio had to take a deep breath to keep herself from completely yelling, but there was a dangerous, dark edge to her voice that hadn't been there before. "This isn't about me, and dammit, this isn't about how weak you _think _you are! I'm here now, and either you're going to talk to me so I can understand what you're thinking, or you'll have to tell me to get out and never come back!!"

For a minute, just a minute, Lutecia was sorely tempted to do just that; to chase Vivio away, to force her out of her life so she wouldn't have to hurt anymore. Gazing at the girl's face, she knew she could do it—but she'd never recover from it.

Somehow, knowing she _could _do it and didn't _want _to seemed worse.

Very slowly, very carefully, Lutecia leaned forward and covered Vivio's hand with hers, gently stroking the back of the younger girl's hand with her fingertips to calm her. Even as she saw the confusion come into Vivio's eyes to replace her anger, Lutecia saw that the gesture had its desired result: the muscles in Vivio's hand relaxed, the tension draining out of her arm at the purple-haired woman's expert touch. Gradually, the tension seeped out of her shoulders, and her whole body seemed to relax. Satisfied, Lutecia pulled her hand away.

"Cia?"

Vivio's voice was shaky now, just as confused as her eyes; and somehow, Lutecia found that she could handle confusion much better than she could handle hurt or anger. She took a deep breath, steeling herself for what she was about to say. She exhaled just as deeply and finally met Vivio's gaze. "I was scared," she said at last.

Vivio blinked at that, and Lutecia saw the questions forming on her lips; but thankfully the younger girl remembered herself and bit her tongue. Appreciating it, Lutecia smiled at her briefly before she continued.

"I was scared," she repeated softly, "because I've never had anyone like you in my life before. Zest did the best he could to look after me when I was young, and Agito always went out of her way to make sure I was never alone, but neither of them could prevent the fact that I saw things, did things in my childhood that weren't normal for my age."

"Erio-nii and Caro-nee…"

"Did their best to bring me back to the light, yes." Lutecia chuckled softly. "Don't get me wrong, they're my best friends. I'll always be grateful for what they did for me. It isn't their fault that I decided to become a Shadow and go back to how I'd been when I was with the Doctor."

A minute passed; Lutecia took another deep breath.

"It gets to you." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "You wouldn't be normal if it didn't; you wouldn't be considered _fit _to be a Shadow if it didn't, but after awhile, it really gets to you. Killing people, torturing them, constantly having to change who you are to get information, having to manipulate and use people like they're nothing more than dolls." She laughed hollowly, with no bitterness to the sound. "Hunting down rogue Shadows… somehow, those are the worst missions you could ever go on, because it forces you to _see _what you can become if you aren't careful… what happens when the job stops getting to you and you start _enjoying _it."

Vivio opened her mouth, hesitated, then closed it. She wanted desperately to interrupt, to say something, but she knew now wasn't the best time.

"I'm not going to lie." Now Lutecia looked away, focusing her gaze on her hands. "In a way, I _did _use you." She inhaled shakily. "It was selfish, and not something I'm proud of, but I won't deny it. That doesn't mean…" She faltered here, hesitated. "That doesn't mean that I was pretending to be in love with you.

"It wasn't something I planned… it just sort of happened, gradually, even when we were young. You accepted me into your life without hesitation, into your _family_, and I had never felt that before. When I got older and more experienced and my superiors started sending me into more dangerous situations, I got through them just by thinking about you, thinking about the fact that you were back home waiting for me. It was enough." Lutecia closed her eyes, felt the hot sting of tears, and fought them back. "I didn't know why back then, but for me, knowing you were waiting was enough. When I was with you, even if it was only for a few hours, I was able to forget about being a Shadow. For just a few hours, with you I could be someone normal, someone who loved and was loved in return; I could feel warm again."

The tears started falling then; Lutecia couldn't have fought them back even if she tried.

"It's true that I only showed you Cia, and not Lutecia as a whole. For what it's worth, I wasn't acting. Everything I ever said to you, everything I ever did, was genuine. I only showed you Cia because I was afraid of losing you… because I was afraid of exposing you to the nastier things in life, afraid of losing that warmth. You were innocent, and I never wanted to taint that. I wanted to protect it. And in the end, I failed." A soft sob escaped her. "I'm sorry, Vivio. I'm so, so sorry."

Several moments of silence passed; Lutecia couldn't even bring herself to look up at Vivio; not that she really could have if she wanted to, anyway. She felt the couch shift slightly and cringed, expecting the worst.

She didn't expect to be pulled into a tight embrace so fast that the air practically whistled out of her lungs, and she definitely didn't expect to be kissed so deeply that her brain threatened to leak out of her ears. She responded to the kiss naturally, without really thinking about it, and when Vivio broke the kiss and buried her face in her hair, she blinked. "Vivio?"

Vivio was trembling as she held Lutecia. "If you ever keep something like this to yourself again, I swear I'll beat you over the head with Burning Glory." Lutecia was stunned to hear tears in the younger girl's voice; she sounded ready to cry.

"You… you will?"

"Of course I will!" Vivio pulled back to look Lutecia in the eye. "I love you! We're supposed to face the scary things _together_, not alone!" Seeing the look on Lutecia's face, she fiercely reined in her emotions and gently drew the older woman back down into her arms. "Nanoha-mama and Fate-mama are supposed to protect me," she whispered. "It's great that you want to do the same thing, but we're supposed to help each other out and support each other, not hide things that are painful."

Lutecia released a deep, shuddering sigh, curling into Vivio's arms and closing her eyes; the tears came an instant later, and she collapsed into sobs. Vivio's arms tightened around her slightly, but the girl didn't say anything; simply closed her eyes and held on.

The tears didn't last long; only a few minutes before they ran dry, fading away into nothing more than soft, slightly ragged breathing. Lutecia, for her part, was perfectly content to stay right where she was and not move; she could easily spend the rest of her life like this, she thought, closing her eyes. She knew she couldn't, of course, but it was still nice to dream. Without even thinking about it, she sighed softly.

Vivio smirked, cracking open an eye. "You're thinking again."

Lutecia blinked, looking up at her with a tired smile. "You can tell?"

"You always sigh like that when something's on your mind." Vivio opened her other eye, gently running a hand through Lutecia's hair. "What's up?"

Lutecia paused for a moment before slowly sitting up, meeting Vivio's gaze. The trick behind this, she thought, was how she told her. Or how blunt she felt like being about it. She took a deep breath. "I'm, uh… I'm leaving," she muttered.

There was a pause; then…

"WHAT?!"

As interesting as it was to see Vivio go so pale in such a short amount of time, Lutecia knew she had to do some quick reassuring. "Vivio. Vi, hey. Look at me." She cupped the girl's chin, and the gesture made Vivio blink; to Lutecia's relief, the shocked glaze cleared from her eyes. "Breathe. It isn't because of you."

"Then _why_?"

"As cliché as it sounds, it's because of me." Lutecia smiled sheepishly as Vivio blinked. "I said some rather gutsy things to Nanoha-san about re-training and taking time to figure myself out, but it's the truth."

After a moment, Vivio nodded slowly. Encouraged, Lutecia went on.

"I'm burned out. I don't like admitting it, but it's the truth. The rate I'm going at, I'll get killed on a mission in about five years." The thought made Lutecia wince. "And seeing those kids… it reminded me that there _are _innocents out there. I stopped believing that after Miranda died, but after seeing them… It's made me stop and really look at what I'm doing, what I'm becoming, and I don't like what I'm seeing."

Vivio looked at Lutecia quietly; finally, she groaned softly and rested her forehead against her girlfriend's, closing her eyes. "Where are you planning to go?"

"Mau Gram. I'd still be there if I hadn't become a Shadow, so I thought… you know, I'd go back to my roots and stuff."

"Okay. When are you leaving?"

Amused, Lutecia leaned up and lightly kissed Vivio on the lips. "In a few days, give or take how everything works out."

Vivio sighed at that. "That doesn't surprise me, knowing you. You probably have it all planned out already. How long will you be gone?"

Lutecia grimaced at that. "I… don't really know," she confessed. "However long it takes me to figure myself out, I guess."

Vivio's response was another soft groan, and it made Lutecia smile. "Any chance I can talk you out of it?" the younger girl asked.

"Sorry."

Vivio sighed and pulled her forehead away, snuggling Lutecia back into her arms as she fell back against the couch. "Let me guess, no contact either."

"Again, sorry."

Lutecia rested her head against Vivio's shoulder; now that they'd both gotten over the initial shyness of it, lying together like this felt extremely good. Vivio rested her cheek against Lutecia's hair and closed her eyes.

"… Cia?"

"Yeah?" Somehow, the old nickname still warmed her in spite of everything.

"Be careful, okay?"

Lutecia blinked; her eyes softened slightly, and she smiled. "Okay," she murmured, closing her eyes. As her heartbeat slowed and her breathing evened out, she remembered something. "Vivio."

"What?"

"You really do need to go home soon. Nanoha-san's probably worried sick."

Vivio just smirked.

"Nanoha-mama can wait."

**The End**

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Nothing naughty happened, all right? All right.

Once again, I owe major thanks to DezoPenguin, who has been kind enough to more or less beta this fic and give me his honest opinion on it in the early stages, and encouraged me to no end. So, again, thank you. You really saved me this time.

When I first started the series, I knew that sooner or later I'd need a steady plotline to build off of; hence, "Shadow" was born. However, for the longest time I was hesitant to write it, because in writing it I was going into territory I'd never touched before. But I took a leap of faith with it, and it's gone much better than I could have ever hoped. DezoPenguin and Dracis Tran (Spawnofthejudge on AS) took it even further and built a whole world around the Shadows!

In the end, of course, I couldn't resist giving Vivio and Lutecia a happy ending after all the hell I put them through. Granted, Lutecia needs to figure herself out now, but... they still love each other, and that counts for something.

Thank you for reading! So, for the last time...

Read and review, please!


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